Venezuela's fortunes rise and fall with the price of oil, and when crude prices tanked in 2014, its economy was thrown into chaos. A government that had relied on oil revenues to fund social spending suddenly came up short of hard currency for imports, causing shortages of every kind. As Nicolas Maduro’s government struggles to contain the crisis, millions of people have taken to the streets to protest his government.
Venezuela has been heavily reliant on oil for around a century. When Hugo Chavez came to power in 1999, the OPEC nation obtained around 80 percent of its export revenue from what one former oil minister once called the “devil’s excrement.” Now, some 94 percent of export revenue comes from oil.
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